#atrophy
I am afraid of my rage
It's hard to gage
Even at this age
What will unlock the cage
Bringing the worst of me to the main stage
I am afraid
I am afraid of my depression
I've failed to get a grip on
This destructive emotion
An unmovable mountain
And the worst possible thing to become canon
I am afraid
I am afraid of my anxiety
Me against me
Me hating me personally
Confidence will atrophy
All I can do is hope no one can see
I am afraid
I am afraid of myself
I am afraid for myself
I am afraid I'm not good for my own health
I am afraid of me more than maybe anything else
©2024
Apr 25, 2024
Apr 25, 2024 at 11:56 PM UTC
i wanted to write like josé olivarez,
to love, plain and simple, and to let
the light in, shamelessly, for all to see
but she wanted a t.s. eliot, maybe a surrealist
portrait, or a picasso to my pissarro, and a tiptoe
around the elephants, for a look into me, endlessly
as if always in search of some deeper, divine meaning,
we parted our ways, but now i no longer feel like me
i have lost my rhythm, though i have not stopped reading
i fall into ignorance; i am called out for perfunctories; so
other than a casual fear of forevers, i now also know: my love
tastes like cheap prose, and an atrophied fondness of writing
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:13 AM UTC
Besieged
by Michael R. Burch
Life—the disintegration of the flesh
before the fitful elevation of the soul
upon improbable wings?
Life—it is all we know,
the travail one bright season brings ...
Now the fruit hangs,
impendent, pregnant with death,
as the hurricane builds and flings
its white columns and banners of snow
and the rout begins.
Keywords/Tags: Life, flesh, disintegration, atrophy, soul, elevation, wings, winter, bright season, fruit, pregnant, snow, rout, tempest, blizzard
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 11:50 PM UTC
The Shrinking Season
by Michael R. Burch
With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.
Originally published by Angle. Keywords/Tags: schoolgirl, outgrows, clothes, widow, disappears, winter, time, shrinking, season, atrophy, emaciation, bone, loss
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 5:12 AM UTC
I feel ...alone
i am ...trapped
I feel ...rage
i am ...obsessed
I feel ...pedantic
i am ...hollow
I feel ...yearning
...for life.
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 1:02 PM UTC
You're laid out with a blank stare
with dreams of becoming a millionaire
on the couch where you're ensnared
stuck in what you call a nightmare
Sorry I have no sympathy
to your muscle atrophy
while you lay in envy
I just can not pity
so I invite you to the city
to come experience poetry
its what helps me feel less ******
No thanks, just let me wallow
while my soul feels so hollow
I will not, can not, follow
I have lost my bravado
go on you wild desperado
to your El Dorado
At least one of us has found gold.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 8:37 AM UTC
They strung me up.
Not by the neck,
that would be
too quick.
No.
They intended
a slow torture for me,
bound one foot,
bound my arms.
I heard a voice:
*Escape is possible
if you want it.*
And I was alone.
At first I struggled.
Swayed back and forth
from the wind, and the weather and the
pain,
to no avail.
But eventually,
I learnt to just
Stop.
If this was my life,
So be it.
I was not going to provide
a show of my misery
to any God.
I saved my energy,
learnt to live with seeing the world
pass me by,
learnt to see things
from a different perspective.
Torture?
This was nice,
relaxing even,
I could hardly feel the pain,
could block it out
almost entirely.
Perhaps this is what I wanted
all along -
an eternal break.
Fool that I was,
I failed to realize
the torture was not physical
but mental.
Slowly I grew bored
in contemplation,
in limbo,
in apathy,
in atrophy.
I remembered the voice:
escape is possible,
I remembered
everything I wanted to do
everything I still yearned to do.
All the beauty and the goodness
and the possibilities of Life
made me ache,
and I could not block it out.
Suddenly I saw:
this was not torture
but a test.
My time of suspension is up,
These are but ropes,
not chains.
I know the way out,
and I am not afraid.
There is work to be done.
Dec 31, 2015
Dec 31, 2015 at 2:05 PM UTC
Honey lets drink the nectar of downtrodden ancient gods
until your limbs fall to ruble
like the temple of their lost worshipers.
Hold loosely to my numb hand as we loose our minds
in the fog rolling through our heads.
Let's escape.
All the legions marching through our veins,
doomed to death and resurrection,
oh how familiar we will be with that destiny
having practiced so many times.
When that fate reaches our time,
and we melt once more,
busts of ink onto the page in blissful atrophy.
Jun 7, 2015
Jun 7, 2015 at 2:38 AM UTC
black cats under calico sky's
in catacombs.white out mask mirrored eyes
white owl massacre night, leaving the bones
take off mask you are home
you live in your cave
escaping hoards of insane
is this all a dream
this cant be reality
its obscene,its us
its everything, passing fling
refrain from truly connecting
parting your society
collapsing into the sea
****** debauchery hearing screams
in the a trophy of atrophy
this is everything I am wanting, and yet nothing at all
its a quick trip to the bottom, but this time your on top again
ride the horses the moist rainy night
show me I am wrong
and prove your are right
so I may worship at your feet
and steal away the night
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 11:44 PM UTC
The heart is a ****** metaphor for love
it is not a muscle
love,
cannot atrophy from lack of use
We collect bruises like badges
staying under water until
we become buried treasure
that someone, anyone will
want to find
When your teeth touch metal
and the bullet dissolves on your tongue,
standing on your own becomes a task
pushed off like last night’s ***** dishes
when the circus poster falls off the post
we rip it off, it becomes strips of a blank page,
I know puppets when I see them
I know when I’m the right shade of numb
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 9:12 PM UTC